Wednesday, October 29, 2008

I palpated Kiss today and she finally palpates positive!! I guess Simin just wasn't the buck for her. I'm excited to see Kiss X Justin babies. All chocolate pointed whites or chocolate based REWs. Exciting!

I gave Sugar her nest box yesterday and she's made a little nest in it. She's due on Friday. We shall see what she has. Hopefully they'll all be fine when they are born, since the weather has been really cold.

I've decided to keep Brandy's little broken chocolate chinchilla doe. She is by far the nicest of the litter and actually looks really promising. I don't have a name for her yet . . . I'm trying to think of something. I'm thinking I'll go with a liquor or alcoholic drink name, since her dam is Brandy and her sire is Daiquiri ;). Gotta keep the theme, ya know! Here's a couple pictures of the little doe:

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

This is something I do not like doing! I like to have one feed, that works great, that the bunnies are fed all the time. That's the way it was in California and I used the same feed for 4 years! Unfortunately that feed is a California milled feed and is only available in California.

I had done research before we moved and found a feed that looked good out here. A locally milled, Oklahoma feed - A&M feeds. The ingredient list on the bag of feed was a bit different than the ingredient list that I was emailed from the mill before we moved out here. The feed was very dusty, not that green & didn't smell super fresh. It was okay, but not great enough where I wanted to drive 45 minutes away to get it.

I used it for 2 weeks and decided to switch. I was going to use PenPals, but the feed store sent my brother home with the wrong thing - Purina Fibre3. I was disappointed at first. I have NEVER liked Purina feed. I was going to return the Fibre3 to the feed store & get the PenPals. But, I went ahead and did a bit of research on Fibre3. I found out it doesn't look so bad afterall! It's got a lot of good ingredients in it and it doesn't have a bunch of "fillers."

I figured I have nothing to lose, and possibly all to gain. So I went ahead and am trying it.

So far so good. The rabbits LOVE the feed and go nuts over it. It smells VERY fresh, looks fresh & is nice and green. Hopefully the rabbits will do well on it . . . we shall see. I don't want to have to switch feeds again in such a short time frame.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Kristen's babies are 3 weeks old, so I took individual pictures of them all. Her babies are soooo cute! She has a blue and a black pointed white - both are does. Very exciting. The smoke pearl doe is super cute too!! The sables are adorable as well . . . but to be honest, sables aren't my favorite color on a baby.

These babies all have EXCELLENT crowns/heads . . .something that the pointed whites have been lacking.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Kristen's babies are 2 1/2 weeks old and coming up to the really cute n' fun age of 3 weeks old :). I normally make myself wait until the babies turn 3 weeks old to sex them, but I was way to curious with Kristen's babies. So, I decided to see if I could sex her babies today . . . and I was able to! I'll double check in a few days just to make sure I didn't mis-sex them.

She has 1 buck and 4 does! Yay!!! I'm so excited. The buck is a sable. That means, the other sable, the smoke pearl and the two pointed whites (yes, both of her "pinks" are pointeds!) are does. If both pointed whites turn out decent, I'll keep them both. I'm so glad Kristen isn't following after her mom and throwing 95% bucks! I'll be super tempted to keep the smoke pearl too if she turns out nice . . . I have the cage space right now, so maybe I'll do that. We'll see!

Oh and I'm totally hoping that one of the pointed whites is a blue pointed, but it's still too early to tell. I do know that one of them is MUCH lighter than other other . . . . sooo, just maybe . . . .

Friday, October 10, 2008

I did a "sneak-peek" of my almost 3 week old litters to see if I could sex them. I could sex 5 of Brandy's 6 babies . . . she has 3 does & 2 bucks. I think the one baby I didn't sex will be a buck. That will be nice - even again, as with her first litter. I hope her little agouti does turn out nice - it'd be nice to have a solid chocolate chestnut doe!

I like does who are consistent with their litters. I don't like the does who always throw a little full of bucks or almost full of bucks! Val was like that with her litters, I hope Kristen's babies are not like that!!

Caramel's babies are both bucks - oh well, I guess I won't be keeping a replacement from her.

Rose has 3 does and 1 buck - YAY! If the buck is nice enough, he may stay here. We shall see though.

I'll get individual pictures on Sunday or Monday, Lord willing and will post the links to their pages when I get 'em up.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The babies are all getting to that really cute age, after their eyes open. Brandy's babies ears are all lopping and they are oh so cute! I had her babies out on the grooming table earlier today and man, are they wild! A couple of them jumped off the table - thankfully they landed in the hay, so it wasn't much of a fall ;).

Here's some pictures of the babies ~

Kristen's babies - her babies eyes are just beginning to open.

Rose's babies - aren't they cute?!

Caramel's babies with 2 of Brandy's babies that Caramel is raising (the top two are Brandy's)

Brandy's lil munchkins

This chocolate chestnut is soooooo cute! I have a feeling several of Brandy's babies will be bucks, since their heads are SO wide already!

I have to palpate Sugar & Kiss tomorrow to see if they took. I'm really hoping they took! I can't wait for some more Sugar babies - they are ALWAYS the cutest!

Milky & Junior both left with Tammy on Sunday. She'll be transporting them to convention where they will be picked up by a couple other breeders who will take them to their new owners. Milky will be going to Kim & Erika in Michigan (BTW, they have a nice website now - www.lyonshareraisingrabbitry.com). Junior will be going to Vanessa in Oregon (http://velvettouchrabbitry.com/).

Mary Whitney will be bringing Deckles from Karin and dropping him off with Tammy. I'll be able to pick him up a couple weeks after convention, hopefully!

After 3 months of being in Oklahoma, I finally ran out of the feed I had brought from California - Templeton feed (which is a GREAT feed!). Thankfully I had researched the feed mills and different rabbit pellet brands they sell out here a few months ago. I settled on a feed milled by a local mill - Stillwater Milling Co. It's called A&M Feed. The ingredients of the pellets looked the best to me and they are also a reasonable price. The feed is fresh & green as well. So, we made a run up to their mill in Claremore, OK to pick up some of their feed. I had about 1/4 bag of Templeton left to be able to mix in with the A&M. We shall see how the buns do on this!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

The barn was finished this weekend and I moved the bunnies in. It's very nice to have a nice, clean, well ventilated barn again :). I'll put a page up on my site sometime here with details & more pictures, but for now, this works . . .

We'll start with Chocolate . . . she was my second doe due on Friday. She didn't kindle until late Sunday night through Monday morning. She kindled to 2 huge DOA's. She pulled a MASSIVE amount of fur (FILLED a gallon ziplock bag!), so I saved all of that. I'll rebreed her sometime when she gets some of her fur grown back and gets some weight back on her ;).

Kristen's babies are all doing great - she has 1 smoke pearl, 2 sables & 2 "pinks" (hoping for a blue pointed white!).

Rose's babies all still just look like lilacs . . . I'm not sure if she will have any steels or not. She's a very lightly ticked steel, so some of her babies may get the ticking in a few days.

Caramel's chocolate baby is actually a silver tip'd chocolate steel. I am a bit disappointed with that, as it means Caramel is a non-extension, hidden steel (most likely AaBbc(chl)cD-E(s)e). I will be selling Caramel when her litter is weaned.

I bred two more does over the past two days. I rebred Kiss to Simin (hopefully she takes this time) and I bred Sugar to Daiquiri. Sugar's litter is a repeat of a breeding I did in California. Her lilac son from that litter, Hoppin's Moses (SD3) is almost granded! I figured it'd be good to repeat that breeding, since I didn't get to keep anything from that litter.

I did not plan on buying anymore new bunnies this year through convention. But, a deal came up that I couldn't resist, so I will be getting (Lord willing) a beautiful blue RGC buck who is the exact addition the pointed whites need - Vail's Mr. Deckles :).

The does that I sent to Finland made it there safe & sound with no problems. Here's a picture of Amber from Maija. . . Amber is totally spoiled rotten!

I'll put up another post with pictures of the barn that is now completed!!

About Me

Hi! My name is Qadoshyah and I'm the oldest of 11 kids. I live on a ranch in the beautiful country of Northeastern Oklahoma with my family. We are a large household with so many kids that we have various projects going on: We raise goats, pigs, sheep, and rabbits (I raise the rabbits - cute little mini lops) on our 44 acre ranch. Our ranch is also home to bullmastiffs, chickens, guinea hens, ducks, llamas, a donkey, a bottle calf, and several ranch dogs and livestock guardian dogs. The youngest two kids are boy/girl twins born in Feb. '05. The boy happens to have Down syndrome. He is such a blessing to our family :)! Our whole family is also gluten-free, which adds another interesting aspect to our large, active family. We also cook dairy-free & corn-free due to allergies a few kids have. Some of the family is also on the GAPS diet to restore gut health.